Founded in 2014, Fluent is a blockchain-based financial network and payment platform startup aimed at providing a frictionless operating network for large enterprises and their global supply chains. The company unveiled their enterprise software platform today, the Fluent Network, which enables real-time, low-cost, simple and secure invoicing and payments along global supply chains via blockchain technology for banks, financial institutions, and global enterprises.
Source: Brave New Coin
With a bunch of new platforms poised to launch and some existing ones making money hand over fist, the gaming and blockchain ecosystem would appear to be happening.
Part one of this series looked at the revolutionary token-based platform FreeMyVunk and the self-styled overlord of high value digital assets, Jon Neverdie Jacobs.
This part looks at more offerings in the space and delves deeper into the question of digital asset ownership. Decentralisation is heralding a new era for gamers trading digital assets using tokens, or smart contracts on a the tamper-proof Ethereum public blockchain, for instance.
The effect is transparency in what was considered to be a permanently grey market, fought over for years by the likes of Brock Pierce’s Internet Gaming Entertainment.
A brave new blockchain-enabled gaming universe ushers in new paradigms of digital ownership, and a rising tide of decentralised platforms threatens to engulf any digital item with transferable value. How will markets not controlled by any single entity play out with big incumbents?
Source: IBT
BlockApps, a startup providing Ethereum blockchain software for enterprises, has become the first certified offering on Microsoft Azure’s Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) marketplace. With its latest post, Microsoft also announced that asset exchange provider AlphaPoint and Internet-of-Things micropayments startup IOTA have joined its Azure BaaS platform.
Source: CoinDesk
I could never have imagined that the article I wrote would have the impact that it has, and I am humbled, stunned, and excited by the outpouring of interest and support that has come my way.
In the short time since it came out, I have been overwhelmed by offers to speak publicly, offers of help and even offers to fund “what you are building.”
So I need to be clear here before we begin: this is not something that I am building. I am the CEO of an amazing company PledgeMusic whose amazing women and men solve what I refer to as the “first mile” problem of the music industry, by eliminating risk, creating engagement and giving artists both money and data to go off and make their music. In short, we help create the rights that the proposed .bc (or dotblockchain) format seeks to codify.
This is a full time job, and it is one that I love deeply. The “last mile” problem, which is the one that this project seeks to solve, is something that I care so very deeply about but that I could not solve on my own (even if I didn’t have a job already). This needs to be solved by all of us, an industry-wide initiative to fix the very problems that we created. I will do all that I can — mornings, lunches, nights and weekends — to advocate for it, but it’s not one person’s job. It’s our job, and that includes you who are reading this.
Source: Cuepoint
Global professiona
l services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) became the latest big-name firm to make its blockchain service offerings public this month, unveiling a solution portfolio designed to take business clients from ideation to iteration as they explore the emerging technology.
The PwC Blockchain Solution Portfolio, a suite of 12 services aimed at spanning the cycle of analysis ongoing at major financial firms, features elements focused on education, evaluation and, ultimately, fostering collaboration between PwC clients and industry partners.
Source: CoinDesk
One of the bigg
est, still-dormant use cases for blockchain technology is in the field of media – the overarching term capturing a slew of creative professions whose traditional business models have been upended by lightning-fast digital file replication.
Across various fields, the problems are clear: writers, photographers and musicians lack the ability to prove and protect ownership of their works and ideas, a prospect that renders monetization in a digital environment difficult.In the face of this challenge, blockchain tech, with its ability to provide provenance, identity and micropayments has emerged as a potential antidote.
One of the more unique projects innovating in this area is Mediachain, a newly launched metadata protocol that allows digital creators to attach information to their creative works, timestamp that data to the bitcoin blockchain and store it with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a distributed file system incorporating aspects of blockchain technology.
Source: CoinDesk
A gang of computer programmers – united by the Bitcoin technology – are trying to revolutionize an industry after 15 years of disruption which began with Napster and was cemented by BitTorrent.
Bitcoin’s blockchain – a decentralized system powered by a network of computers – serves as the transparent backbone of the Bitcoin network. The blockchain, which functions as a public ledger, maintains the accounting of the Bitcoin network, timestamping each transaction and assigning a unique ID.
Numerous individuals and companies are excited about the future of the blockchain and the music industry. Three companies, PeerTracks, Bittunes and Ujo Music, each claim their business model will liberate musicians from being under the thumbs of overbearing music labels and streaming services.
Source: Bitcoin Magazine
The singer’s experime
nt with “Tiny Human” is the precursor to an entire music eco-system she’s building called “Mycelia,” named after a thread of underground fungus that grows for miles.
Aside from enabling faster, direct payments for artists, Heap wants to create a free platform where musicians have control over the data created by their songs as they circulate among fans and other musicians, including the song’s credits, terms of usage dictated by the artist, where the song is played and when, and any transactions.
This information is tracked using blockchain technology, a method of recording digital transactions first used for Bitcoin.
Source: Quartz
After a series of mishaps working with bitcoin startups – including the infamous, now-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, Dwolla is once again hoping to work as the connector between the emerging technology and traditional financial worlds.
The alternative payment network has been quiet about its foray in the blockchain space, but Ben Milne, Dwolla‘s founder and CEO, says the company is working closely with startups building solutions for tracking assets on the blockchain.
As assets are sent from one blockchain to another or from one business to another, there will have to be a real-world payment in fiat currency to settle that exchange so people can pay their mortgages and purchase other things that can’t be bought with a cryptocurrency or digital assets, Milne contends.
Source: CoinDesk
D
igital Asset Holdings LLC, a start-up specializing in the blockchain technology for the financial services industry, announced on Wednesday that it has entered into business relationships with Accenture, Broadridge and PricewaterhouseCoopers to ensure faster adoption of its product.
“These alliances will accelerate innovation, drive growth and broaden our reach in different segments across the world,” said Blythe Masters, chief executive officer at Digital Asset holdings and a former JP Morgan investment banker.
The partnerships show how the financial services industry is exploring the potential of the blockchain. In 2015, there was an explosion of interest in the bitcoin technology as a way to solve inefficiencies in financial markets.
Source: Reuters